The Damaged Love
by SherlockedUntilDeath
Summary: A young Sherlock Holmes at Harvard is bored and tired of his existence when the beautiful, manipulative and odd Irene Adler enters his life. But Sherlock's heart is shallow and he is not capable to love or care about another human being. Love has never been more complicated, because the same reasons they are drawn to the other are the same reasons why it's impossible. AU.
1. Hemoglobin

The area of Harvard University was kissed by the sun and the aroma of the spring apple trees perfumed the air the early April morning when our story begins. The school grounds were relatively empty, and the young man who this story is about was leaning against a great oak, thinking about everything worth thinking of. The class of advanced biochemistry was at the moment locked up in one of the ancient labs, and he didn't really fancy going. The subject was easy and dull and he was tired of his pathetic teacher. However, he decided to go anyway. His swirling thoughts were too annoying to ignore and lessons were almost a perfect distraction.

He entered the classroom and muttered an excuse as the professor cleared his throat and told him that "students who missed their classes just destroyed their yet brilliant futures." Sherlock snorted. _A brilliant future?_ Please. He spent the lesson by writing down a puzzle in his notebook and reacted only once when the professor asked him a rather basic question.

In the end of the lesson, the professor finally asked the final question and Sherlock reluctantly raised his fist into the air. However, another student was allowed to answer. He sighed but flinched with surprise as he realized that he didn't recognize the voice. He turned around in his seat to confirm his suspicion. A new student. The voice itself wasn't very special. It belonged to a woman, but was too deep to appear feminine. It had a somewhat sarcastic undertone, but was insipid and sounded bored. However, the woman was beautiful and her face features were young. She _looked_ bored too, though. She had the same expression as Sherlock always had when he attended classes. She searched for a distraction, and looked for something more exciting than advanced biochemistry. Their eyes met, and first, she looked even more mocking. Her expression suddenly changed, and she looked understanding and empathic. As if she understood _him. _The freak.

"Yes, miss Adler?"

"Oxygen. However, I just wanted to correct the black-haired man in the front seat. The correct answer is hemoglobin." She smiled to herself, as if the answer had been a private joke. He stared at her. Of course, the answer was hemoglobin. How could he have been mistaken? The rest of the class was also flabbergasted, judging by the amazed murmurs he heard from behind. That was not the important issue at the moment, though. _She _was the important issue.

He couldn't read her. She was a complete riddle to him, and he hated it. He stared at her more intensely, forced himself to concentrate. She smiled wider, as to provoke him even further when he couldn't make her out. Sherlock turned around, facing the teacher again. He was determined to ignore her. The lesson ended, and he left quickly, desperate for a smoke.

He slowly lit his cigarette outside the main building, his mind focusing on the thrill of the cigarette. He honestly didn't know what to do without his precious and most effective distraction.

"Do you have another one for a lady in need?" It was the new student from the biochemistry class. He sighed under his breath as he reached her the box of cigarettes, carefully avoiding her gaze.

"Thanks." She said and briefly touched his hand as she took the box from him. He tensed as he felt the pressure of her smooth and cold skin. He couldn't but notice the diamond ring on her finger. She was silent as she smoked, but didn't move from Sherlock's private space. That bothered him slightly, as the other students usually avoided the dark young man with the frightening intellect.

"Does your fiancée go here as well?" He asked her after a couple of minutes.

"No." She told him, sounding relatively surprised.

"His company takes loads of his spare time as well, I can imagine. But you'll have the time to marry in your hometown, New Jersey, later this year?" He finished his statement with an almost mocking smile; it was much easier to read her when he stood next to her. She was harder to make out and more… mysterious than the rest of his classmates, though. Her eyes were still grave, bored and reminded him of his when he hadn't smoked in days. She gave him a stretched and humorless smile in return.

"You must be Mr. Sherlock Holmes, then. I've heard loads of things about you."

"All bad?"

"All." She confirmed and dropped the cigarette on the ground. She placed a black high heel on it and turned around on the spot.

"Well, well. It was nice chatting with you, Mr. Holmes." She said, winked at him and opened the door that led to the library. She tilted her head to the left.

"Goodbye Ms. Adler." He said quietly as she didn't leave for another half a minute.

"Sure. Just another thing, Holmes. It's hemoglobin, not collagen. Make sure to remember that" And with a short laughter that easily could be taken for a cough, Ms. Adler disappeared through the door.

Sherlock was quite speechless for the first time possibly ever, and realised that this was the longest conversation he had had with another student in at least two years.

**AN: Surprise, I'm back! I've been on a holiday and I'm home now, that means loads of updates and new fanfics. This one is practically already written, and I love writing stories about irenelock (?) when they are young. Irene is not a dominatrix yet, and Sherlock hasn't started to solve cases yet. Expect a new update soon, XoXo**

**/Frida**


	2. Fascinated By A Woman?

As the weeks passed, and Sherlock got busy dealing with other issues, Ms Adler disappeared out of his thoughts. However, he didn't forget her completely. They hadn't spoken since that sunny afternoon in April, and Sherlock didn't consider her _that_ important. Sometimes, he wondered why he found her (and a few others) comparatively agreeable when he despised so many of the other students in his biochem class. She was clever, of course, but there was also something else, much more captivating, behind her imperturbable façade. He secretly admired her because of her manipulative character. She was the most manipulative and witty woman Sherlock ever had come upon. She was at least as smart and desperate for a distraction as Sherlock, but had loads of friends and social status. After a couple of weeks, Sherlock wasn't even sure of what her favourite colour was, she changed her mind about everything and everyone depending on who she was talking to at the moment. And still, she was so _bright_ and so unquestionable. It was as if her life was a game and she was the authoritarian judge. He wondered who she really _was _behind her controlled mask. Though, he decided to not analyse her any further. They had only spoken once, after all.

An early evening in the end of May when Sherlock Holmes read a boring and futile book about molecular biology in the library, he encountered her the second time.

"Hello." She politely greeted him as she went past.

"Hello." He murmured. He didn't look up until she took the place beside him. "What are you doing?" He asked her, and didn't even bother to act polite. He was usually alone, and he wanted it to remain that way.

"I'm reading, is there anything wrong with that?" She sounded amused – that was not a good sign. It would be easier to make her leave if she was angry, or at least irritated, at him.

"No, but you're sitting next to me." He growled, but flushed when he said the sentence out loud and realised how childish it sounded. The woman smiled confidently, raised an eyebrow and didn't move an inch.

"Dear, I'm sitting wherever I want to sit" she coldly clarified and opened her book. They were silent for a couple of minutes as Sherlock decided to not care about her presence. He threw her a quick glance now and then, she didn't look as haggard and woe-begun as she had before. Her long brown hair was shinier and her cheeks redder, though her grey eyes remained cold, unemotional and observing. She caught him staring at her.

"Is there anything wrong?" She asked sarcastically and closed her book. He flinched slightly when he noticed the title of the volume. They were reading the same book. He cleared his throat.

"We're reading the same book." She rolled her eyes.

"Yes, it would seem so. What do you think about it?"

"It's dull. Boring." He shrugged.

"I disagree, I think it's interesting." She smugly told him and rested her head in her hands. "Maybe it's too difficult for you, Holmes."

He shook his head, visibly irritated.

"Too simple actually. I think the description of the human immune defence is too basic, the authors haven't always used the correct facts and I don't understand why this is our main text-book."

"And yet, you've never tried to read it as if you are wrong. Even if you're not, try to imagine it as if you don't have the faintest idea."

"That's stupid, why on earth would I do that?"

"You have to read it with your eyes open, figuratively speaking. Every book is like… a human being. Hard to work out, beautiful and it could, if you're very lucky, take you on a magical journey. Perhaps, it's supposed to be basic, perhaps the facts are correct and you're wrong. Hemoglobin, remember?" He sighed.

"Will you never forget that?" He asked and stood up; he was growing tired of Ms Adler and his next class began in just a couple of minutes.

"_You_ will never forget that, so why would I?" She told him and stood up as well. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Class." He shortly replied and hurried away, though he could hear her walking beside him. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her swiftly.

"And where are you going, if I may ask?"

"Class." She answered shortly and gave him a stern look. They got to the door rather quickly as Sherlock walked his fastest to shake her off. She shadowed him and wasn't left behind, and Sherlock was visibly annoyed when they were outside the classroom in question. He felt irritated because of her impertinence and her shrewdness, she questioned him constantly. And _yet_, he was fascinated by her, by her character and intellect. Though, he didn't _want _to be fascinated by her.

"And one last thing, Ms Adler. Human-beings are _not _hard to work out." He susurrated and opened the door.

"Well, try with me then." She breathed and entered the classroom with a theatrical sigh. Sherlock followed her with a displeased grunt.

"Mr Holmes and Ms Adler, you are late for this class." They mutually murmured an apology. "I guess you have to sit next to each other, then. Take a seat."

They wordlessly grabbed a chair each in the back and the class started, with none of them actually listening. Sherlock struggled with the thought of asking her a question, he didn't want her to follow him or take interest in him further, but he wanted to know what she had meant before. And he wished that he could study her more closely, simply because he was extremely interested in _her_. He gave up and wrote the question on a piece of paper he found in his pocket. He passed her the neatly folded note under the table.

_What did you find interesting about the text-book? – SH_

He received her short answer after just a couple of seconds.

_I didn't say I found the content of the book interesting. I found you reading it interesting - IA_

**AN: You don't review that well. If I don't get more this time, I will not give you the next chapter. Review. Now.**


	3. The Same

She practically ignored him during the rest of the week. They didn't speak and she never bothered to look at him when they bumped into each other in the usually very crowded corridors. He didn't mind, but felt… rather empty. He didn't understand why, they didn't know each other well. She was just a random woman in his class, and yet she was so different. One of a kind, the only one he had ever met that _mattered_. Everybody else was so bleak and non-saying. He didn't even know if he _liked _the woman or approved of her, but he knew that she mattered to him. And that frightened him a lot.

Apart from biochemistry, she studied psychology and English literature. Sherlock found himself straying around the corridors where she had lectures, just to get a glimpse of her. As he didn't know why he felt empty without their peculiar conversations and her swift glances, he didn't know why he, more or less, stalked her. However, she didn't notice him and Sherlock remained unseen.

"Do you mind?" A voice suddenly interrupted him when he ate lunch one day. He didn't need to look up to confirm who the voice belonged to.

"No." He honestly answered and she took the chair opposite his. They were silent for a couple of minutes.

"How are you?" She inquisitively asked.

"Fine." He sharply replied. "You?"

"Ok." She shrugged and returned to her plate with lasagna. Sherlock, however, got interested against his will. He tried to deduce small things about her that could have made her sad, or gloomy, but found it surprisingly difficult. More difficult than the first time they had met, and that was extremely odd. She had two drops of ink behind her left ear; maybe she had written a letter? But why would she do that instead of sending a mail? He frowned. Her hands were clean, so were her clothes. The label in her shirt in the back of her neck was visible, she was a size small and the shirt came from Armani. Rich, he observed but wasn't surprised. Almost all Harvard students were awfully rich or very intelligent. Usually the first of those two routes. Her engagement ring was missing, he noted when he looked at her hands again. Well, it had to be the fiancée then. She had a little bit of inking print on the tip of her nose, probably from a newspaper. He developed a mental image of the poster he had seen when he had bought cigarettes earlier this morning. _Godfrey Norton's company in ruins. _Her fiancée had to be Godfrey Norton, CEO and famous billionaire.

"I'm sorry about Godfrey, I hope you'll be fine." He quietly told her, to his great surprise. He was actually _worried_ about her emotional state. He mentally snorted. She flinched, but didn't look flabbergasted or surprised, as if she had waited for him to make the conclusion (or the connection). She just gave him a cold stare and left in a hurry. When Sherlock stood up, he found a folded note on her chair. He suspiciously opened it.

_I'm waiting for you outside at the oak. – IA_

That was rather unexpected, he had to admit. He wasn't sure why he decided to go and meet her, but did so nevertheless.

"Do you have a cigarette?" She asked when he approached her. He nodded and reached her the box of matches and a cigarette. "Walk with me?" She suggested as she lit it. Sherlock followed her doubtfully.

"I've always been a beautiful girl." She told him as they strolled down the main road. "When I was fifteen, I met him. Godfrey Norton. I was, back then, very poor and I had no choice." She unemotionally said. "Love is for the weak and for a woman who wants to survive, love is not an option. Men use women." She clarified and continued mockingly. "When they are done with us, they leave us to rotten and_ love_ is the force that destroys us in the end." They still wandered around the school yards and the cold voice of the woman made Sherlock _feel_, and he loathed it. But he couldn't tell her to stop, her words bewitched his mind and soul and he didn't know how to act. Therefore, he remained silent and waited for her to continue her story.

"He proposed two years later, and I accepted. He is… acceptable and rich, most importantly, but he is not someone I ever could fall in love with. I have now decided to leave him, simply because he can't afford me any much longer. And he's a terrible snorer." She sighed and Sherlock nodded and tried to not smile, because he finally understood her choices, he could make her out. He almost felt as if he _knew _her.

"I see." He told her in a deep voice. "But why are you telling me this?"

"I've always been different, though I've pretended to be normal during my entire life. I always feel like I'm standing in the middle of a crowd and screaming the loudest I'm capable of. But they never hear me, nobody has ever heard me until I met you. I understood the first time I met you, that we're the same." Sherlock nodded.

"Does this mean that we're friends?" He suspiciously asked.

"I don't know, perhaps if you want to. I don't think that's really necessary."

"I don't want friends." He automatically said and quickly swirled around, facing her. He studied her cold expression, and admired her secretly. He had never met such an energetic woman, such an energetic _person_. Though, that didn't change his opinion. He didn't want friends, but he was _attached_ to her. "But I want to be with you." He reluctantly confessed and she gave him one of her rare stretched smiles.

"We don't have to be anything you don't want us to be." She shrugged. "We are still aliens from the same planet, and nobody will ever understand our curse."

"I know." He whispered and, after a short moment of hesitation, he apprehensively embraced the woman.

**AN: Many have asked me why they go to Harvard and that's a secret right now. But I can tell you that it has something to do with the end of this fan fiction, and that I have a very good reason.**

**This is probably a bit OOC, but this is how I pictured Irene Adler before I saw A Scandal in Belgravia. My fan fiction, my rules. REMEMBER TO REVIEW OR I'LL BURN THE HEART OUT OF YOU.**


	4. Friends

Things didn't change radically between them. They, as individuals, remained cold and untouched. Though, Sherlock Holmes considered hera friend. There were days when they didn't even speak and there were days when they constantly talked, associated and sometimes even smiled. A stretched smile, emotionless, swift or a haggard one. But they were all smiles, and they enjoyed each other's company to the full.

The woman wasn't very sentimental, but they did occasionally talk about her former fiancée, her father, or Sherlock's childhood. They smoked loads of cigarettes, wandered around and appreciated the other's presence. Talking wasn't always necessary, but as she didn't mind talking and he wanted to know more about her, they did little else. He found her as mesmerising as always, and he started to _like _her against his will, because she acted so differently when she was with him compared to how she acted when she was with her friends, the professors and strangers. She was very popular, but stood above all that. Though, she didn't _despise _humankind as Sherlock did. She liked other human-beings company, but never opened up to anyone. Therefore, Sherlock feared that he only was a piece of her puzzle and that he hadn't got the faintest idea of who she really was.

They never spoke about their feelings or their relationship. If they even had one. The fear of her leaving him because of sentiment, or the other way around, kept them from bringing up the subject. The summer arrived in the beginning of June, and Sherlock was forced to visit his parents in Great Britain. He hated his pompous and snobbish father and his supercilious older brother, who never left him alone. They constantly whined about him, asked him meaningless questions or told him that he was the greatest disappointment of the Holmes family. His mother, on the other hand, was a clever woman who loved her family and her sons more than anything. Though, after twenty years of terror, Sherlock had decided to leave England for good.

"I'm going back to New Jersey." She told him one day when they were having lunch. He frowned.

"Are you staying long?"

"No." He waited for her to continue, but was well aware that she could choose not to tell him to any further extent. Usually, relying on people wasn't the woman's way of doing things; she never told Sherlock exactly what she thought. Therefore, Sherlock got surprised when she spoke again.

"I'll be heading back after just a couple of weeks." He nodded. They were silent for a while until Sherlock decided to ask her something personal.

"Are you going to see your mother?" He hesitantly murmured and scrutinized her carefully. She flinched.

"Of course not. Why on earth should I do that?" Sherlock knew that she and her mother had a somewhat… complicated relationship (quite similar to the relationship he had with his brother) but he hadn't asked her. If she wanted to tell him, she would.

"My mother is a prostitute. She failed me and my sister, who died four years ago. She married a poor man and got a divorce after giving me birth."

"I'm sorry." Sherlock said, and meant it. She shrugged and tried to act blasé.

"She is not a part of my life anymore." She said, a little too fast and a little too sharply. Behind her stone-like expression, Sherlock sensed grief. She smiled when she noticed him staring (which meant, in Sherlock's case, deducing.)

"No, no, no. I won't tell you anything more."

"It's fine." He automatically said and scowled, angry with her for catching him ogling.

"No it's not. You enjoy it. You want to know more about me, because you are fascinated with me." Sherlock grinned against his will, and smugly replied.

"You had eggs for breakfast."

"_You_ are angry with yourself because you've started to like me, and you want to be independent. A human-being could easily break you, especially one you care for. I sense… a damaged love. A separation from a family and a woman. That's why you have a hard time dealing with your feelings for me, you loved a woman. A mother perhaps?"

"You had a toast this morning as well. You don't want to go back to New Jersey, because you miss your sister and your former fiancée. Despite what you told me, you cared for him. You still wear your engagement ring and you haven't dated someone else, even though many _have_ asked you out the latest couple of weeks. You've sold your old flat, and you're looking for somewhere else to stay. You don't have much money, and you hate it."

"Correct, Mr Holmes, apart from one thing. I never cared for my husband; I just keep the engagement ring on so I won't lose it. I want to sell it. And the people I've rejected these weeks, that was only because of you." And with that, the woman disappeared as quickly as she always did. She often escaped their conversations as fast as a glimmer, and Sherlock sometimes thought of her as a fairy or another magical creature. Though, he would never admit that if you asked. She left Sherlock with a confused expression and hundreds of thoughts, and he immediately started to analyse what she just alleged. But before he even started to do that, he realised that this was the last time he would see her until August. And he realised that he would miss her. He would truly miss her, and he didn't even know her name.

**AN: That's right, he doesn't even know that her name's Irene. Don't worry it's all a part of the plan. Next chapter will be a chapter just about Irene, and the next will be a chapter just about Sherlock. Now, REVIEW FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!**


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